Power Energy Drink

August 27, 2019 by PandaPop ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

powershottmulti

This little drink was taking up a whole shelf at Home Bargains and not many people were buying it. I’m not a major energy drink drinker but I was in the mood after seeing this (plus there was an offer for 5 for £1!)

The first thing that hits you is the smell. This drink has a super powerful odor that according to my mother, you can smell from the upstairs level of the house! (Sorry mom!) It doesn’t bother me, but you may get a few dirty looks from co-workers or strangers on a train if you drink this in a public area. (I didn’t but I don’t really worry about that!)

The taste is this nice sweet citrusy cool liquid that tastes like a Monster drink but without that huge pang. This has this calm little tang with it but not overwhelmingly so. It’s sort of like a Red Bull but not as powerful. Which is quite nice!

The color of the liquid is yellow so isn’t appealing to drink from a glass (if you were to pour it into a glass instead of the can). Though again, this point didn’t matter to me as I like having colored drinks.

Did the product work at giving me energy? These drinks never really work with me and it didn’t keep me awake at night but I did feel that I didn’t feel out of breath or tired throughout the day which is good, I enjoy having a drink that gives me the ‘oomph’ without keeping me awake at night.

This drink remains fizzy even after a while which is good because drinks like these tend to go flat after 10 minutes or so.

Would I buy again? Definitely.

Taste: 10/10 Great. I really love the taste.
Price: 8/10 39p currently at Home Bargains and is usually on a multi-buy offer.
Packaging: 8/10. Though small and slim, you find that this is just enough to get you throughout the day.

Crispy M&M Chocolate Spread

February 18, 2019 by PandaPop ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Capture

I love crispy M&M’s (it the only one I eat) and was just waiting for the day for this to go on offer. With my joy, this was on offer for £2 at Asda & Tesco. Sadly, I wish I could get my money back.

This has hazelnuts in it. I hate chocolate spread with hazelnuts in it. I don’t understand why they couldn’t make this with just plain chocolate milk. (Like the Galaxy Spread!) So the taste is totally covered by the nutty taste and odour.

The feel of this is unsatisfying. I expected this to be like the Maltesers spread in which the chocolate bits are easy to munch on, this one however taste like you bit into a crunchy bug. The M&M bits taste more like a Ferrero Rocher than M&M. It’s also hard to spread, because the bits are so hard.

There’s not one bit of this spread that tastes like M&M’s.

Taste: 1/10 Nothing M&M about it. More like Ferrero Rocher.
Price: 3/10 It’s fine if you like the taste. Though for that price I can get two packs of a Galaxy or Maltesers one.
Packaging: 8/10. You can collect the sticker on top of the lid which is fun for kids, though I’d prefer if they had an image of what the spread actually looked like.

Tesco Hearty Food Co. Noodles

February 18, 2019February 18, 2019 by PandaPop ♥ 2 Comments

Despite the fancy ‘hipster’ looking logo, this is just a cheap, own-brand noodle from Tesco. So don’t be fooled by the fancy logo in thinking this will be a gourmet level dish. There main pushing point is that they are ‘healthy’. (But only because it’s half the amount of a normal pack!)

It’s super cheap, so that’s why I brought it.

I love instant noodles, I’ve tried many brands (from the ‘overseas’ aisle in stores & different asian stores) none as beaten my favourite Koka chicken noodles but seeing as this was super cheap, what would I loose really!?

I tried both flavours, chicken & a curry flavour. They are both 14p each. I cooked both in a saucepan, not a microwavable bowl.

Chicken flavour:

The chicken one was the one I got first, sadly it’s super starchy. This flavour tastes like spaghetti that wasn’t washed or rinsed properly. Note that I said spaghetti, because it’s definitely not a ramen taste or texture. It’s also got a green herb (coriander maybe?) that doesn’t mix well in the noodles, whilst I cooked them, they just stuck to the sides of the pan rather than season the noodles. I couldn’t really taste much, the starchy texture and odour was too overpowering, but there is a slight chicken taste. Still…not as good as a Koka chicken noodle pack!

Taste: 2/10
Price: 10/10 14p per pack. Pretty much what you expect. You would need to buy two to feel full though.
Packaging: 4/10. That hipster logo isn’t fooling anyone. The pack also doesn’t show the green herbs in the noodles, so if you had planned to stock up for a fussy child, think again.

Curry flavour:

I tried the curry flavour the next day. My hopes weren’t high because of the chicken flavour but still, I purchased it so I might as well try & review!

The curry one comes with this bright yellow power, I have no idea what that was. (Turmeric maybe?) There is a taste, but I could not tell you what that is. I literally have no idea. It doesn’t taste like any curry I’ve ever had. The closest I can place is maybe a super mild potato curry?

This one doesn’t come with any herb in it, which is weird because this is the flavour that should have had the green herbs in rather than the chicken one! Because of this you are left with a sad little pile of bright yellow noodles in your bowl. There’s no spice to this so I had to add hot sauce to mine. (Even a Pot Noodle curry flavour has a little spice in it so this one is a baby version of that.) Though at least this one at least tastes like ramen noodles instead of spaghetti & doesn’t have that starchy feel.

Remember that these packs are half the amount of a normal branded, pack of noodles. So these will not fill you up. Think of these as a diet version of your normal noodles.

Taste: 1/10
Price: 10/10 14p per pack. You would still need to eat two to feel full.
Packaging: 6/10. The noodles you can see in the pack are a lot more similar to the ones you will make from the pack than the Chicken one.

Would I buy either again? Probably not. If the chicken one didn’t taste like spaghetti instead of ramen, I would have brought it just to add my own ingredients in at home. The curry one just tasted way to plain for me.

Asda’s Frosted Flakes Cereal

January 19, 2019 by PandaPop ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Image result for ASDA Frosted Flakes

As a big fan of Frosties I could do with a cheaper alternative to save money. This is really great, it’s not too sugary and it doesn’t get mushy in milk. The taste is perfect, and I probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference with the branded product and this one!

I easily recommend this if you’re a fan of Frosties!

Taste: 10/10
Price: 8/10 95p for 500g. It could be cheaper but it’s a decent price for it’s quality.
Packaging: You know what to expect from this product. The use of the lion is pretty tongue-in-cheek because of the normal brand.

Lidl Cotton Wool Pads

January 19, 2019 by PandaPop ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

The Aldi ones are brilliant so I wanted to give the Lidl ones ago. These aren’t as good as the Aldi ones as theirs are a bit stronger and durable, and you get 2 packs for the price you’d get for the Lidl one.

The pad isn’t durable and even without any wiping, the cottons starts coming apart. I’ve found that as soon as I put a make-up remover or even water on the pad, that it starts breaking apart.

I’d recommend getting the Aldi version as you get two packs for the price of one! It’s much more durable than these ones.

Feel: 5/10 Not bad, but could do better.
Price: 6/10 42p for a pack of 140.
Packaging: 4/10 Comes apart pretty easily, so it’s easy for holes to be poked in the plastic wrapper, may cause sanitation issues depending on the user.

Asda Golden Balls

January 19, 2019 by PandaPop ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Image result for ASDA Golden Balls

This is much better than the branded cereal than make my mouth sore! It’s not super sugary like the branded cereal & it doesn’t hurt your teeth when you eat them. If you find this to hard for your teeth I recommend letting it soak in the milk for a bit. It doesn’t get mushy like other cereals.

It has a nice aroma to it and an almost honey like taste?

Taste: 10/10
Price: 8/10 (89p for 375g)
Packaging: 10/10. Stands out on the shelves so not hard to look for in the supermarket.

Lidl Cotton Buds

January 19, 2019 by PandaPop ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Lidl’s brand for beauty products is Cien. I usually get a pack of cotton buds in Poundland but this is much cheaper and Lidl’s other products seem to be doing good so worth a try.

The stick to these cotton buds break easily. They bend almost every time I use them. The cotton wool part comes apart easily too, not as easily as the stick but still, a bit of a hassle that I could do without.

It’s a shame this product isn’t that great, I was really hoping it would do better but alas, I must give a honest review!

I’ll stick to going to Poundland for my usual stock!

Feel: 4/10 Not comfortable.
Price: 7/10 (35p for 200 sticks)
Packaging: 9/10 A bother to open at first, if you aren’t holding it’s base, when you first open the lid, the entire box will fall to the floor due to the sticker making it topple on the other side. I just leave it open on my stand now.

Asda’s Rice Snaps Cereal

January 19, 2019 by PandaPop ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Image result for ASDA Rice Snaps

A family friendly cereal at only 75p for a 340g box!? Bargain right? Hold on…

I loved rice krispies as a kid. Now that I’m an adult I’d thought to try out a cheaper knock-off box. Asda came through with their own brand cereal, however when I tasted it, it all went wrong.

I’m pretty sure this cereal is mostly sawdust. I’m certain. The look of the product & the smell is very sawdusty. I even tried sieving the cereal in a colander when I was nearing the end of the box to get most of the dust off, sadly it didn’t work. The taste doesn’t taste like cereal. It taste like cardboard.

The feel isn’t nice either. It’s texture isn’t exactly mushy but…it has a stale like quality? I’d expect rice krispies to go soggy once it hits milk, it is rice puffs after all, but this product just takes the cake!

I thought I got a bad batch so a few weeks later I tried again with the same results. I tried a third time a few months later but the sawdust feel got worse so I won’t bother trying this again.

Taste: 3/10 Was good for the first box, but quickly got worse with every repurchase.
Price: 8/10 It is worth it if you like the taste & can’t get any other cereal.
Packaging: 9/10. Standard cereal box.

Lidl’s Toothpaste

January 19, 2019February 18, 2019 by PandaPop ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

First time buying toothpaste from Lidl. I didn’t think much because…well it’s Lidl but their products have been in the news lately raving how good they are so I thought might as well see how their stuff is.

This is Lidl’s brand ‘dentalux’ whitening toothpaste. They do other sorts but what I needed at the time was a whitening toothpaste. This dried my mouth out when I used it twice a day so I switched out my morning toothpaste for another branded toothpaste. This toothpaste leaves a clean feeling in my mouth, but because there’s no minty taste or smell, it doesn’t give that satisfying feeling. Still, for the price it’s cheaper than other brands. As for the whitening impact; this products works, but it’s results are slow. Maybe it’s because I’m using it only once a day instead of twice so your results may differ to mine. I’ll keep buying this, but as it’s absence of the minty feel makes my mouth feel tacky later in the day, I won’t use it twice a day.

Taste/Smell/Feel: 5/10 Not bad…but not as great as it could be either.
Price: 59p for 125ml’s. It’s okay for it’s worth.
Packaging: This toothpaste comes in a twist-off cap at the base. I’d prefer a pop-up lid for pure laziness but it’s not something that makes the product difficult to use. The product also stays upright even when the paste is getting empty which is good use of the packaging in my opinion!

Would I buy again? I don’t shop at Lidl often but when I do go I’d buy a few again. Maybe test out their other toothpaste range!

Baxter’s Tomato Soup.

January 19, 2019 by PandaPop ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Disgusting.

In a word, this product is…disgusting. It’s gross. It’s vile and I wouldn’t buy it again.

I was looking for a cheap product to buy in time for the colder season, I got some soups, saw this on the shelf, and thought to myself, hmm, that seems different, I’ll give it a go.

I was wrong. So very…very wrong.

Let’s start off with the basics.

You can heat this in a pan over the hob or just in a bowl in the microwave, either way, it only takes a few minutes to heat up & ready to eat. So suitable for a quick and lazy meal.

HOWEVER

This product, as soon as I opened the tin, had a very metallic smell to it. I thought nothing of it, it’s from a can, it’s bound to smell a little bit tinny; it’ll go away once cooked. The amount in the tin is very small. There’s only about a tablespoon of rice & 5 or so, of bits of corn. Hardly worth calling it a sweet corn product!

As for the ‘spicy’ part, well I had to add my own spices in to give this product any flavour. It’s so unspicy, I’d be fine if someone fed a toddler this soup.

The tomato doesn’t taste or smell like a actual tomato. It smells and tastes of a very bad canned spaghetti hoops, (Not to say I don’t like canned hoops, but this product had that yucky taste & texture…Imagine if the Americans made a fake tomato sauce/soup product, it would taste like that, this is the American cheese slice, of tomatoes.) the sweetness is overpowering & make me gag. (Even after adding two spoons of chilli powder) I couldn’t even finish of this can because it was so awful.

I don’t know where the spices they had in this product went, because it certainly wasn’t in the soup! If you do plan to buy this, I recommend having a stack of spices ready to give this a kick and to cover up that nasty metal smell and the sickly taste.

Taste: 1/10
Price: 4/10 (£1 on offer at Morrisons for a serving of one person.)
Packaging: 1/10 Lies! There’s barely any rice or sweetcorn in this at all & the tomato is not spicy.

Would I buy again? Absolutely not! If this goes out of my memory & it’s on offer again, maybe I’ll buy it to give it another chance, but for now, there’s no way I’ll buy this again anytime soon.